How to Deal : Movie Review

Essentially The Virgin Suicides-lite, How to Deal unravels like pages from a self-flagellating tween girl’s diary. Halley Martin (Mandy Moore) wants to know why love makes people crazy and has yet to grasp the concept that “even Madonna eventually got married.” While mom (Allison Janney) takes out her frustrations with the male sex on unsuspecting garden weeds and soda machines, her child of divorce dutifully shuns the love of the cool Macon (Trent Ford). When it rains it pours, and every potentially thorny crisis in the film--walking in on a best friend having sex, an impromptu death, an unexpected pregnancy--is reduced to a mere Hallmark card moment.